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Walking routes in Saint Petersburg

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      The Romanovs: from the Saviour on Spilled Blood to the burial vault

      ⏱ 10 h🚶 6 km🍽 3📍 8 stops
      🚶 Moderate — 3–7 km

      The dynasty’s history: where Alexander II was fatally wounded, Paul I’s castle, the Peter and Paul Cathedral and the Winter Palace.

      🏛 History and architecture🎨 Art
      🗺 Open in Yandex Maps
      1. 1
        ☕️ Prosa Breakfast Bar
        наб. канала Грибоедова, 5
        ▮▮▮▯▯
        Breakfast opposite the Saviour
        🍴 A small breakfast bar by the Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood: breakfast is served from morning to evening, with wine and cocktails alongside. What to order: eggs Benedict, syrniki with raspberry sorbet, oatmeal with Parmesan and prosciutto.
      2. 🚶 on foot
      3. 2
        🏛 Church of the Savior on Blood
        наб. канала Грибоедова, 2Б
        🎟 ticket
        A colorful church in the Old Russian style with enamel and gilded domes on the spot where Alexander II was wounded.
        Here Alexander II was wounded
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Church of the Savior on Blood
        © Wolfgang Moroder · CC BY-SA 3.0
        Church of the Savior on Blood
        © Florstein · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The church, 81 meters tall, took 24 years to build — from 1883 to 1907.
        • Alexander III rejected the designs of two competitions and approved the design by Alfred Parland and Archimandrite Ignaty (Malyshev).
        • The mosaics were made by Vladimir Frolov's workshop from sketches by more than 30 artists, among them Viktor Vasnetsov and Mikhail Nesterov.
        • During the siege the church was used as a morgue, and after the war as a scenery warehouse of the Maly Opera Theater.
        • In 1961 steeplejacks found a German high-explosive shell in the central dome, which had lain there for 18 years.
        • The museum opened on 19 August 1997 — exactly 90 years after the church was consecrated.
      4. 🚶 on foot
      5. 3
        🖼 Mikhailovsky Castle
        Садовая ул., 2
        🎟 ticket
        Paul I's fortress castle surrounded by rivers and canals, with the high golden spire of its house church.
        The castle where Paul I was murdered
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Mikhailovsky Castle
        © Florstein · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Mikhailovsky Castle
        © Florstein · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The castle was built in 1797–1801: the project was begun by Vasily Bazhenov and completed by Vincenzo Brenna.
        • Paul I lived in the castle for about 40 days: he moved in on 1 (13) February 1801 and was killed here on the night of 12 March.
        • The castle stands on the site of Elizabeth Petrovna's wooden Summer Palace, where Paul himself was born in 1754.
        • The copper letters over the gate — “Holiness becometh thine house, O Lord, for ever” — were first made for the Smolny Cathedral, then for St Isaac's.
        • According to legend, the colour of the walls was chosen after the glove of Paul's favourite Anna Lopukhina; restorers found a pinkish-orange paint under the plaster.
        • The castle got its second name, “Engineers' Castle”, from the Main Engineering School that took it over in 1819.
        • In front of the castle stands the monument to Peter I after a model by B. K. Rastrelli, with the inscription “To the great-grandfather from the great-grandson” — Paul put it up in 1800.
        • Since 1994 the whole building has belonged to the Russian Museum.
      6. 🚶 on foot
      7. 4
        🌳 Summer Garden
        🚪 entrance on the Moika side, by the Carp Pond
        🎟 partly ticketed · The garden is free; the Summer Palace is ticketed
        Peter I's garden with marble statues, fountains, the Summer Palace and the famous railing on the Neva side.
        Peter’s Garden
        🚪 exit to Palace Embankment
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Summer Garden
        © ElenaLitera · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Summer Garden
        © Florstein · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Summer Garden
        © Евгений Со · CC BY-SA 3.0
        • The garden was laid out by order of Peter I in 1704, on the site of the manor of the Swedish major von Konow.
        • Most of the marble statues are by Italian masters of the turn of the 17th–18th century; they were bought in Italy by Peter's agents.
        • The sections of the Neva railing were forged in 1773–1777 at the merchant Denisov's Tula works.
        • The storm and flood of 21 September 1777 destroyed the garden's fountains, and it was then decided not to restore them.
        • Rossi's Coffee House (1826) was rebuilt from the “Grotto” pavilion, and Charlemagne's wooden Tea House (1827) is finished to look like stone.
        • The monument to Krylov by Pyotr Klodt was put up in 1855; the pedestal is decorated with scenes from the fables.
        • After restoration the garden had its grand reopening on 27 May 2012.
      8. 🚶 on foot
      9. 5
        🏛 Peter and Paul Cathedral
        Санкт-Петербург, Петропавловская крепость, 3Ж
        🎟 ticket · the fortress grounds are free, the cathedral requires a ticket
        Trezzini's cathedral with a 122.5 m spire, the burial place of the Romanovs from Peter I to Nicholas II.
        The Romanov burial vault
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Peter and Paul Cathedral
        © Никонико962 · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Peter and Paul Cathedral
        © Evgeny Zykin · CC BY 3.0
        • The cathedral was built in 1712–1733; until 1952 it remained the tallest building in Russia, and in Petersburg until 1962.
        • The stone cathedral was built around a working wooden church, which remained inside the construction site.
        • In 1830 the roofer Pyotr Telushkin repaired the angel on the spire, climbing up without scaffolding.
        • The carved iconostasis, almost 20 metres high, was made in Moscow in 1722–1727 — a gift from Peter I and Catherine I.
        • Peter I was only buried on 29 May 1731 — until then his coffin stood in a temporary chapel inside the unfinished cathedral.
        • The bell tower has 103 bells, 31 of them a Dutch carillon of 1757; carillon concerts are sometimes held.
        • The chimes used to play the hymn "How Glorious Is Our Lord in Zion" at the start of every hour.
      10. 🚶 on foot
      11. 6
        🍽 Petrovskoye café in the Peter and Paul Fortress
        Петропавловская крепость, 3Т
        ▮▮▯▯▯
        Lunch in the fortress
        🍴 An inexpensive canteen-style café right inside the Peter and Paul Fortress: soups, pastries, lunches. What to order: borscht, pasta, pirozhki, tea in a pot.
      12. 🚶 on foot
      13. 7
        🖼 State Hermitage (Winter Palace)
        Дворцовая пл., 2
        🎟 ticket · free for concession holders on the third Thursday of the month
        Rastrelli's turquoise-and-white palace on the Neva — the tsars' main residence, now one of the largest museums in the world.
        The Winter Palace — the dynasty’s home
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        State Hermitage (Winter Palace)
        © Никонико962 · CC BY-SA 4.0
        State Hermitage (Winter Palace)
        © Ludvig14 · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The Hermitage dates from 1764, when 317 paintings of the merchant Gotzkowsky were handed to Catherine II from Berlin in settlement of a debt.
        • The present Winter Palace is the fifth one: built in 1754–1762, it became the tallest residential building in St Petersburg and had about 1,500 rooms.
        • The fire of 1837 destroyed all the palace's interiors, but under Stasov and Bryullov it was restored in just two years.
        • The Jordan Entrance is named after the "Jordan" ice hole: at Epiphany the royal family went out through it onto the ice of the Neva.
        • On 5 February 1880 the Narodnaya Volya member Stepan Khalturin set off a bomb in the palace, aiming at Alexander II: 11 guard soldiers died, the emperor was unharmed.
        • From October 1915 to November 1917 a hospital named for Tsarevich Alexei operated in the Winter Palace's state rooms.
        • The Hermitage collection was evacuated during the war, and not a single exhibit was lost.
      14. 🚶 on foot
      15. 8
        🍽 Gogol
        Малая Морская ул., 8
        ▮▮▮▯▯
        Dinner
        🍴 A Russian-cuisine restaurant set in a 19th-century noble apartment, between St Isaac's Cathedral and Nevsky. What to order: borscht with salo and pampushki, chicken Kiev, pirozhki, olivier salad, homemade tinctures.

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